British Prime Minister Tony Blair will on Wednesday fly to the Sudan to warn the Khartoum government that it must act swiftly to end the atrocities and refugee crisis in its western region of Darfur, mainly by allowing as many as 5 000 African Union peacekeeping troops free movement into the region this month.
The visit is a sign of Blair’s personal commitment to end ”the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa since Rwanda”, but carries big political risks if indifference within the international community means the refugees continue to be attacked with impunity.
Blair, the first serving British prime minister to visit an independent Sudan, will meet the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on Wednesday morning in Khartoum.
The prime minister’s hand is strengthened by the threat of UN-imposed sanctions still hanging over the Arab-dominated Sudanese government. The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, reported on Tuesday that Khartoum had made no progress in the past month in meeting the terms of two UN security council resolutions passed earlier this year.
Aid agencies, notably Oxfam, speaking from Darfur on Tuesday warned that ”beatings and rapes were continuing on a daily basis”, and urged Blair to extract specific assurances about an expanded mandate for the African Union troops due to protect the refugees and aid agencies.
There have been calls for Britain to provide logistical support to the AU troops, but there is no plan for largescale British military involvement.
Blair can also offer the carrot of further EU and British aid if the Sudanese government negotiates a comprehensive peace deal due to be discussed with the main rebel groups later this month.
The international community has been accused of acting too late to prevent what the US government has called the genocide of black Africans by the Arab government.
Bashir, a former host of Osama bin Laden, seized power in a coup in 1989 and has spent nearly 20 years suppressing an independence movement in the south of the country. He insists he has no control over the militias in the Darfur region, describing them as outlaws, and saying his police have done everything possible to secure general disarmament. Few at the UN accept his denials of responsibility.
Drastic oil sanctions against Sudan have so far been averted by the threat of a UN veto by China, and the Khartoum government’s as yet untested acceptance of as many as 5 000 Africa Union troops into the country to monitor the ceasefire and ensure safe passage for aid workers. At present, there are fewer than 300 AU troops in Darfur, an impoverished region larger than France, and their chief mandate is to protect 60 ceasefire monitors.
The aid agencies said on Tuesday they were concerned that the British government was misleading itself into believing the humanitarian crisis was easing at a time when 1,4-million refugees remained in camps running out of fresh water and shelter. Blair’s spokesperson said that there had been an improvement in the supply of humanitarian aid in urban, but not rural areas, partly due to UN pressure.
Reports suggest that Sudanese government-supported militias, mainly the Janjaweed, have killed as many as 50 000 non-Arabs in a campaign of ethnic cleansing — acts condemned by the US government as genocide, which implies an organised government intent to commit mass murder. Britain says it will await the result of a UN-sponsored commission of inquiry before deciding whether Bashir’s government is directly responsible for the deaths.
Speaking from Nyala in the south of Darfur, Oxfam aid worker Adrian McIntyre said: ”People in the camps are still suffering from daily violence nearly six months after a ceasefire, including rapes, beatings and humiliations such as cutting women’s hair.”
Blair is likely to urge Bashir to look for a long-term political solution. But the prime minister, in the region for a two-day meeting of his commission for Africa, will meet stiff opposition since prominent Sudanese officials earlier this week ruled out any notion of self-rule for Darfur.
The agriculture minister, Majzoub al-Khalifa, head of the government’s Darfur peace talks delegation, questioned whether Khartoum would even continue negotiating with one of the rebel groups in the talks scheduled to resume later this month. – Guardian Unlimited Â